Chevening Scholarship essay on Leadership skills and Influence
Being a leader has been my passion in life and it propels me in dealing and managing people. In the capacity of being a leader, one tends to interact and have an influence on people he/she is leading. Throughout my working career, I have been blessed with opportunities of being the leader of a team or church leadership positions.
To state specific example; in 2011, I was appointed the head of the GIS unit of our institution. This was a new department and the entire institute knew nothing about GIS, its implications and applications, as well as its uses. I was tasked to form a team of 6 persons whereby can kick start the department. The challenge was getting people who were at least literate in IT as well as get interested people who want to learn GIS. So what I did was, first I called a meeting of all staff and told them about my journey in GIS, how I fell in love with it and how it has changed my life. I also gave them the view that due to my unique GIS capabilities, the institution now has a chance to utilize new technology in local development and planning. I recommended some online courses to introduce them to the field and for them to gain knowledge. After this, within the space of a week, I had up to 21 persons vying to be part of the department. They came to see the importance of having knowledge and more still, having that department in the institution.
Secondly, I worked with a team of foresters who were supposed to map out agricultural land and differentiate it from virgin forest and a national park. This team had a lot of experts but no real leader. So when I came in as the supervisor, my unofficial task was to manage the too many egos and expertise amongst the workers and to make sure the job is done and delivered on time. Looking at the team, I decided to assign each person a zone to work in and to avoid three persons working in one zone. These zonal work would rotate after every 12 hours. I made sure I visited each zone to supervise their work and take into account their difficulties if they had any. By so doing, I kept everyone working in their specific fields with little conflicts from the other department. Upon the testimony of the managing director, he had never seen such a strong leader in the field and within 3 weeks, we completed a job which was assigned for 6 weeks. This gave us plenty of time to review the work done and make necessary corrections.
Last but not the least, in 2017, I was appointed as a director of Admin and Finance in an organization. When I got is, I realized the workers lacked motivation and they had no real zeal to work. My first task was to look into the workers situation and find out what is their problem so as to regain their confidence. Just after I had started then I realized the main problem was they were not having their monthly wages and sometimes it comes very late into the other month. So I took steps to find out the procedure of payment and the source of their income. I sought to find out what was the delay of these salaries and see how to correct it. Soon, I found out that the salaries were deposited at the bank very late. This meant the bank would process them late and delivered late. So I first called a meeting to explain the situation to them as asked them what they thought would be a better solution. After they had given me their ideas, I sat back with my assistant and devised a strategy where salaries would be deposited early enough for all staff to gain just at the end of the month. For the 12 months that I worked in that organization, they never lacked their monthly salary and it came on or before the 31st of each month.
I am confident, and I have strong believed that this wonderful scholarship will sharpen my leadership skills to higher heights so I can be able to help more people in my daily interactions.
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